Nook sales crashed by over 66 percent during 2013 holiday season

Back in August 2013, Barnes & Noble declared that it wasn’t giving up on its Nook e-reader just yet. Despite its struggles, the longstanding American book retailer blamed previous management for poor sales. It turns out, though, that even with a new president and CEO, few people want to buy the things.

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On Thursday, Barnes & Noble announced that “device and accessories sales” plummeted to $88.7 million during the October through December 2013 holiday period, a drop of 66.7 percent. The company attributed the drop to “lower unit selling volume and lower average selling prices.” Of course, that’s prime shopping season, when most retailers see a spike in sales. The company added that “digital content sales” were $36.5 million during the same time frame, a drop of 27.3 percent.

Somehow, CEO Michael Huseby thought that these depressed sales figures are a good thing.

"We are pleased with our holiday sales results, especially our core comparable bookstore sales, which were essentially flat and an improvement as compared to the first half of the year," he said in a statement. “During the holiday period we benefitted from a strong lineup of bestselling titles, great execution by our booksellers and merchants, an effective advertising campaign, and strong increases in our Juvenile, Gift, and Toys & Games categories.”

“Sales in the Nook segment declined year-over-year largely because during the previous holiday season the company introduced two new tablet products, while no new tablets were introduced this year,” he continued.

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is due out in May 2018 from Melville House. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

When Microsoft bought an interest, I was expecting Nook to be a preloaded app on all Win 8.1 tablets (there's currently Xbox Video and Xbox Music but no Xbox Books), and then the Nook counter in Barnes & Noble stores would turn into little mini Microsoft stores where people could check out Windows tablets in person. Neither happened, and I think it was a lost opportunity.

The good thing is that after being discontinued, re-continued, and ignored they are still selling. It means that if B&N can get out a new device to prove they are still in the market they have a chance to stay in the market.

“Sales in the Nook segment declined year-over-year largely because during the previous holiday season the company introduced two new tablet products, while no new tablets were introduced this year,” he continued.

When is the last time anyone here has seen a commercial for the Nook?Soooo, don't introduce any new products and don't advertise or promote the ones you have. Now that's a business plan.

They should give up on the tablet-readers; they're competing against Nexus and Kindle * Fire devices; both Google and Amazon have the resources to beat them on that front.

Instead, focus on their app and--especially--their store. Push the money they'd put toward developing and marketing tablet devices to beating Amazon on store size, releases, etc. Even a 1-day release on a big seller can be a huge profit source; imagine getting a Harry Potter book before anyone else in the US.

And, frankly, they need to branch out from literature; it'll be hell to catch up to Amazon to any significant degree, but that's who they're competing against.

This is not at all a surprise, they're being undercut by the sale of their own refurbished Nooks. I picked up a Nook HD+ 16GB for $110 in September, and a 32GB for $120 in October. They're great tablets, easy to root and run CynaogenMod on. I bought the first one originally just to read manga scans on, but since it's become my primary mobile device. So why would you pay $150 for the 16GB or $180 for the 32GB direct when you get the exact same 1 year warranty from Barnes & Noble on refurbished ones? (You can also get the Nook 7" tablets cheap as refurbs, also with the same 1 year warranty.)

I bought a 32GB Nook HD+ back in July from Wally World for $180+tax. The screen is awesome for reading comics, watching Netflix/movies and best of all, no camera so I can take it to work with me. While the launcher is kind of lame and I could replace it, and I've considered rooting/installing CyanogenMod, I've done neither because I really like the profiles feature which lets me assign what I want to my 10 year old. To me, this is a "sleeper" tablet.

Well I bought a nook hd, refurb for $89, and they practically make it zen easy to hack or use cyangenomod on it. Just stick a micro sd card in it, and that's it. No locked bootloader whatsoever, with it already set to boot off a micro sd card as it is.

“Sales in the Nook segment declined year-over-year largely because during the previous holiday season the company introduced two new tablet products, while no new tablets were introduced this year,” he continued.

When is the last time anyone here has seen a commercial for the Nook?Soooo, don't introduce any new products and don't advertise or promote the ones you have. Now that's a business plan.

Perhaps it was market dependent, but they were saturating the airwaves in the weeks leading up to Christmas on the cable channels I watch. It was just one commercial that touched on all their various product groups (including the Nook), featuring the actor who played Kenneth on 30 Rock. It aired so many damn times it got incredibly grating, although I will grant that it was pretty good in that it tried to highlight all the different sides of B&N (i.e. not just a tired old book store).

Its not so much about the Nook as it is about the lack of content other then books. The Nook is not a all around tablet. Its very much tied to B&N and unless you hack it your basically stuck. Amazon has a way better ecosystem if your going to be stuck within a ecosystem. My Wife is a avid reader and I bought her a Nook Color a couple years ago. Waste of money as she could buy paperbacks way cheaper then the eBooks. Now its not even worth dirt on trade in. I can't remember a ad from B&N that even really addressed their Nook's in any real significance. Mostly their night reader was all they pushed. Its all in what you plan to consume in content, but I would say unless your basically a reader with a minor in any other media. I would pass on anything B&N has to offer. They could easily jettison the Nook into a highest bidder and stick with a basic reader. I know with the Nook Color it was not very long they stopped updating it. Support was not B&N strong points.

“Sales in the Nook segment declined year-over-year largely because during the previous holiday season the company introduced two new tablet products, while no new tablets were introduced this year,” he continued.

When is the last time anyone here has seen a commercial for the Nook?Soooo, don't introduce any new products and don't advertise or promote the ones you have. Now that's a business plan.

Yea, I think B&N had a Christmas ad that featured their reader. But nothing on the Nooks. B&N must have the same ad company as Microsoft. Can't sell a product if they tried.

They should give up on the tablet-readers; they're competing against Nexus and Kindle * Fire devices; both Google and Amazon have the resources to beat them on that front.

Instead, focus on their app and--especially--their store. Push the money they'd put toward developing and marketing tablet devices to beating Amazon on store size, releases, etc. Even a 1-day release on a big seller can be a huge profit source; imagine getting a Harry Potter book before anyone else in the US.

And, frankly, they need to branch out from literature; it'll be hell to catch up to Amazon to any significant degree, but that's who they're competing against.

Frankly, I find the Nook HD+ I have to be light years better than the 1st gen Kindle Fire I also have. I find it standing up to the 1st gen Nexus 7 I bought my mother quite well too. They're also dead easy to root and put CyanogenMod on. You can pick one up dirt cheap as a refurb, and Barnes & Noble gives a one year warranty on all the refurbs, same as new Nooks.

Barnes & Noble does occasionally have some good sales, I picked up a digital sub to Analog & Amazon's Science Fiction magazines for $30 for the combo. (Also included 12 back issues for both, which is a bit over a year since they have double issues twice a year.) I wouldn't have bought that if I hadn't gotten a Nook tablet in the first place.

B&N needs the nook to stay relevant, without it they're the next Borders.

I will laugh maniacally when B&N shuts down.

1) B&N killed the one of the best bookstores I have ever seen2) B&N stores are 49,500 square feet of useless dreck with a decent 500 square foot bookstore scattered throughout.

B&N should realize they're no longer in the eBook/tablet business. They're getting totally owned by Kindles/iPads. And with same store sales at such a low level, their only major asset at this point is their real estate. Sounds like they're ripe and ready for a takeover by a liquidation firm.

I'd love to get their old Nook Glowlight. The Kindle Paperwhite is nice, but I like that you can hack the NGLT to be a full Android OS and read any format you want. The new glowlight is basically the old one repackaged with 4GB of storage, though you can't use 95% of it because it's reserved for B&N.

This is not at all a surprise, they're being undercut by the sale of their own refurbished Nooks. I picked up a Nook HD+ 16GB for $110 in September, and a 32GB for $120 in October. They're great tablets, easy to root and run CynaogenMod on. I bought the first one originally just to read manga scans on, but since it's become my primary mobile device. So why would you pay $150 for the 16GB or $180 for the 32GB direct when you get the exact same 1 year warranty from Barnes & Noble on refurbished ones? (You can also get the Nook 7" tablets cheap as refurbs, also with the same 1 year warranty.)

Refurbished Nooks are the best bargain in Android tablets right now.

I got a refurb 32 gig for xmas, and I can't wait to get the time to hack it! Just not high on priorities right now. Love the size and screen quality though. +1 for them being a stupid good deal.

This is not at all a surprise, they're being undercut by the sale of their own refurbished Nooks. I picked up a Nook HD+ 16GB for $110 in September, and a 32GB for $120 in October. They're great tablets, easy to root and run CynaogenMod on. I bought the first one originally just to read manga scans on, but since it's become my primary mobile device. So why would you pay $150 for the 16GB or $180 for the 32GB direct when you get the exact same 1 year warranty from Barnes & Noble on refurbished ones? (You can also get the Nook 7" tablets cheap as refurbs, also with the same 1 year warranty.)

Refurbished Nooks are the best bargain in Android tablets right now.

I got a refurb 32 gig for xmas, and I can't wait to get the time to hack it! Just not high on priorities right now. Love the size and screen quality though. +1 for them being a stupid good deal.

Some people have problems getting the Nook to boot from the microSD card is the only issue. I did some research and a SanDisk class 4 card is pretty much guaranteed to work. I bought one of those and both the 16GB and 32GB ones booted first try from it, so if you have any problems, get one of those. (I had to get an 8GB card, even though the image is 4GB, but still worked just fine.) It takes maybe an hour all told to get CyanogenMod on one, most of the time is doing the backups.

I sell eBooks on both B&N and the Kindle store; even though sales are down this year all over I'm still selling more than twice as many copies on the B&N store. In the area of indie eBooks I think there's less competition on B&N, which makes it easier for my books to get noticed. While I own a Kindle for my own reading, I hope that Nook stays viable to keep Amazon honest.

I bought a 32GB Nook HD+ back in July from Wally World for $180+tax. The screen is awesome for reading comics, watching Netflix/movies and best of all, no camera so I can take it to work with me. While the launcher is kind of lame and I could replace it, and I've considered rooting/installing CyanogenMod, I've done neither because I really like the profiles feature which lets me assign what I want to my 10 year old. To me, this is a "sleeper" tablet.

Its not so much about the Nook as it is about the lack of content other then books. The Nook is not a all around tablet. Its very much tied to B&N and unless you hack it your basically stuck. Amazon has a way better ecosystem if your going to be stuck within a ecosystem. My Wife is a avid reader and I bought her a Nook Color a couple years ago. Waste of money as she could buy paperbacks way cheaper then the eBooks. Now its not even worth dirt on trade in. I can't remember a ad from B&N that even really addressed their Nook's in any real significance. Mostly their night reader was all they pushed. Its all in what you plan to consume in content, but I would say unless your basically a reader with a minor in any other media. I would pass on anything B&N has to offer. They could easily jettison the Nook into a highest bidder and stick with a basic reader. I know with the Nook Color it was not very long they stopped updating it. Support was not B&N strong points.

What are you talking about? With the Google Play Store you can access just about anything you want. It's a fine general purpose tablet. The only thing it lacks is GPS and a camera, but then you don't pay for those, either. If anything, adding Google Play has shot them in the foot: When I went to buy a book, I bought it from Google, not B&N, because, frankly, the B&N store is hard to find now. My daughter has a Galaxy 3 Tab and it has an icon for "store"; when you click it, you get two more icons: the Samsung Store and the Google Play Store. B&N should have done something like that for the Nook.

I haven't bought any of their stuff, but I'm becoming a little concerned about Amazon not having any competition at all.

Yes. I'm concerned that if B&N bows out, then Amazon will essentially become a monopoly on E-books. The one company that did seem to really try and fight the business model of Amazon, namely Apple, did it in such a plainly bone-headed way that they were the ones hit by the anti-trust complaint rather than the obvious market leader.

I love Amazon, but the increasing centralization of power amongst a few web companies is unsettling. Not sure what the answer is.

Well I bought a nook hd, refurb for $89, and they practically make it zen easy to hack or use cyangenomod on it. Just stick a micro sd card in it, and that's it. No locked bootloader whatsoever, with it already set to boot off a micro sd card as it is.

How do you boot CyanogenMod off the SD card? That was how you did it at first - and if you took the SD card out it went back to stock Nook. But then they developed a way to burn the ROM from the SD card (removing the SD card now does nothing) and now I can't find the original SD card image that lets you return to stock. Since Nook isn't an official supported platform it's all hit-and-miss and nobody seems to have scraped together all the information and put it in one place. At least, as of my last search that was the case.

Update: Thanks to Maestro4k for the link, but that's the same one I found. It clearly says: "Guide for converting the 9" Nook HD+ or 7" Nook HD to full Android, by installing CyanogenMod 10.1 (CM 10.1) into Nook's internal storage, replacing the stock firmware." I'm looking for the old one, that runs off the SD card and does NOT replace the stock firmware. Anybody?

I find this saddening because the kindle is great, but it's tied to their own store. The Nook is probably the best device I've used that can buy books from B&N, Google Play, Sony Store and anywhere else that uses the DRM ePubs. I don't understand why so many people like to buy devices where they're pledging all their money to one master.

I think it's sad when any company that isn't actually doing something unethical, or criminal has major problems, with a risk of shutting down. Despite what a couple of people here are saying, I've bought from Barnes & Noble for decades, and have never had a problem.

However, I don't have a Nook, and I don't have a Kindle. But I do buy books from all three big e-book stores. I do that on my ipad. It seems to me that both Barnes & Noble and Amazon should drop out of the hardware business, except perhaps for a very cheap B/W reader, and just sell to those with Android, Win 8 and iOS tablets.

I've bought a lot of books from those three since I bought my first iPad back in May 2010.

Not all bookstores opened at the same time, but here are the current numbers;

IBookstore: 209

Kindle bookstore: 215

Nook bookstore : 143

I think that a better deal for Amazon and Barnes & Noble than their losing money on their readers.

I think it's sad when any company that isn't actually doing something unethical, or criminal has major problems, with a risk of shutting down. Despite what a couple of people here are saying, I've bought from Barnes & Noble for decades, and have never had a problem.

However, I don't have a Nook, and I don't have a Kindle. But I do buy books from all three big e-book stores. I do that on my ipad. It seems to me that both Barnes & Noble and Amazon should drop out of the hardware business, except perhaps for a very cheap B/W reader, and just sell to those with Android, Win 8 and iOS tablets.

Right now the Kindle is one of the best Android tablets out there, and the Nook is one of the best values. Why wish either of those away?

I'm intrigued - if one doesn't want to necessarily root the thing, what are the drawbacks? The HD+ refurbs seem to be quite cheap. Is it limited to use on some BN store, or can you install any android app? How far behind is their version of android? Any issues in installing the kindle app?

In short, what's the catch? On paper, it looks more interesting than the Nexus I was considering... and a bigger screen.

Its not so much about the Nook as it is about the lack of content other then books. The Nook is not a all around tablet. Its very much tied to B&N and unless you hack it your basically stuck. Amazon has a way better ecosystem if your going to be stuck within a ecosystem. My Wife is a avid reader and I bought her a Nook Color a couple years ago. Waste of money as she could buy paperbacks way cheaper then the eBooks. Now its not even worth dirt on trade in. I can't remember a ad from B&N that even really addressed their Nook's in any real significance. Mostly their night reader was all they pushed. Its all in what you plan to consume in content, but I would say unless your basically a reader with a minor in any other media. I would pass on anything B&N has to offer. They could easily jettison the Nook into a highest bidder and stick with a basic reader. I know with the Nook Color it was not very long they stopped updating it. Support was not B&N strong points.

Tied to B&N?!? I have a Nook (bought when it just came out...) and I don't think I've got more than 5 books on it from B&N. Most are from Baen, Gutenburg, etc, because unlike the Kindle, the Nook does not tie you to an ecosystem: It expects (open standard) ePub format as it's main file format. (Using Adobe DRM if you want DRM - so you aren't even tied to B&N for DRM.) The only tie it has to B&N is the built-in bookstore, which can be ignored.

Between a Nook and Calibre, you should never need to touch B&N for basically anything, if you don't want to. (I'd buy more books from B&N if I knew which of theirs didn't have DRM - I consider 'buying' something with DRM to be renting, and I don't rent books.)

I'm intrigued - if one doesn't want to necessarily root the thing, what are the drawbacks? The HD+ refurbs seem to be quite cheap. Is it limited to use on some BN store, or can you install any android app? How far behind is their version of android? Any issues in installing the kindle app?

In short, what's the catch? On paper, it looks more interesting than the Nexus I was considering... and a bigger screen.

It's Android 4.something - not the latest, but not bad. It has the Google Play Store so it can access just about anything, including the all-important Candy Crush and Angry Birds. You can't side-load apps, though, so you can't load anything from the Amazon app store, for example. I frankly never tried the kindle app because I see no need to buy ebooks in Amazon's proprietary format, but it might work. You'd probably have to side-load the ebooks yourself (you can do this, you just can't side-load apps). Edit to add that Calibre is perfect for loading books of all sorts onto the Nook.

I think it's sad when any company that isn't actually doing something unethical, or criminal has major problems, with a risk of shutting down. Despite what a couple of people here are saying, I've bought from Barnes & Noble for decades, and have never had a problem.

However, I don't have a Nook, and I don't have a Kindle. But I do buy books from all three big e-book stores. I do that on my ipad. It seems to me that both Barnes & Noble and Amazon should drop out of the hardware business, except perhaps for a very cheap B/W reader, and just sell to those with Android, Win 8 and iOS tablets.

Right now the Kindle is one of the best Android tablets out there, and the Nook is one of the best values. Why wish either of those away?

I'm talking about the readers, which are, for the Kindle, anyway, terrible tablets. The Kindle tablet, isn't really a "bookreader".

But Amazon is losing a lot of money on these, as is Barnes & Noble. I doubt they are selling much more of anything else because of them. They should just concentrate on selling other goods, and not worry about where they are being sold.

I bought a 32GB Nook HD+ back in July from Wally World for $180+tax. The screen is awesome for reading comics, watching Netflix/movies and best of all, no camera so I can take it to work with me. While the launcher is kind of lame and I could replace it, and I've considered rooting/installing CyanogenMod, I've done neither because I really like the profiles feature which lets me assign what I want to my 10 year old. To me, this is a "sleeper" tablet.

Pete sends...<eom>

I run a custom launcher (it just runs, no root or anything required), and still have access to the profiles feature. Now, I'm not sure if all the other profiles will also run the custom launcher or default to the Nook one, but it just takes a few minutes to install Apex or Nova and try it.

Its not so much about the Nook as it is about the lack of content other then books. The Nook is not a all around tablet. Its very much tied to B&N and unless you hack it your basically stuck. Amazon has a way better ecosystem if your going to be stuck within a ecosystem.

Nook runs the stock Android Play store, so you can get anything that you can get on any Android tablet.

“Sales in the Nook segment declined year-over-year largely because during the previous holiday season the company introduced two new tablet products, while no new tablets were introduced this year,” he continued.

When is the last time anyone here has seen a commercial for the Nook?Soooo, don't introduce any new products and don't advertise or promote the ones you have. Now that's a business plan.

Like someone said, they had general B&N ads that featured books and toys and whatnot but also had the Nook in it, so not Nook specific ads, but they were definitely present during the holiday season. It was in the Seattle area on Comcast.

I bought a 32GB Nook HD+ back in July from Wally World for $180+tax. The screen is awesome for reading comics, watching Netflix/movies and best of all, no camera so I can take it to work with me. While the launcher is kind of lame and I could replace it, and I've considered rooting/installing CyanogenMod, I've done neither because I really like the profiles feature which lets me assign what I want to my 10 year old. To me, this is a "sleeper" tablet.

Pete sends...<eom>

pretty sure the Kindle Fire HD and later has everything you just listed, though I guess it also has a camera, which is a bad thing for you apparently.